hobo sapiens's Journal: visiting again

I haven't been to Slashdot for a while. I came back to check out my profile page.

I wonder whatever happened to my friends here? I wonder whatever happened to people from the glory days, TripMasterMonkey and Cowboy Neal? I wonder, does anyone even know them anymore? There hasn't been a "cowboy neal" option on the Slashdot polls each of the last times I came back to check.

Visiting Slashdot is like coming to visit the old neighborhood you grew up in and finding everyone has either died or moved away, and all the old buildings you remember are gone. Or perhaps visiting a vacation spot you remember from childhood, only to see the cabin you stayed in every summer leaning to one side, windows broken, and paper blowing in the cold wind.

I wonder, in twenty years, when the slashdot servers are decommissioned, where the data will go? Probably nowhere. Think of it, millions upon millions of hours of peoples' time writing up lengthy explanations, refutations, troll posts, Soviet Russia jokes, and Natalie Portman memes, all gone just like that. It's just bits on a storage system, but it represents so much.

I used to envy the low ID posters. I once tried hacking the site to see if I could somehow hijack the email address of an unused low digit ID post. I'll bet many here have tried something similar. Back then, karma, friends, and yes, even my ID really mattered. I visited slashdot daily, posted daily, metamoderated daily, and all for what? Things that seem important soon fade. Perspective, you cruel bitch!

There was once community here. I enjoy posting on reddit, but there is no community there. The poor bastards don't even show the user ID. Any self respecting geek would wonder about the value in the primary key column of his user record. I guess redditors aren't really geeks.

Will anyone even see this entry? Or has slashdot become, like so many other good things, swallowed up by the cold, black vacuum of indifference? People say time will tell, but in reality, time has no obligation to do so.

See you in the void.